When You Give a Time Lord Toxic Space Sugar
by Nehszriah
Summary: After travelling to the spaceport of Kinurra, the Doctor doesn't feel too good, which leaves Clara to take care of him. [from a tumblr prompt] . [rated for mentioning of things and sick-related grossness]


A/N: The following comes from a tumblr prompt regarding Twelve having an allergic reaction to alien sugar and Clara needing to take care of him.

2204 words; takes place somewhere in s9 because that's where some of the most open Whouffaldi is; contains gross things related to being sick and allergic reactions so be careful if your stomach isn't the sturdiest; not a faithful representation of sweetener allergies but that's because we're talking a Time Lord here

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When You Give a Time Lord Toxic Space Sugar

It was meant to be a romantic getaway: plenty of mysteries and running and explosions and saving civilizations until they couldn't stand looking at one another. It always progressed in the same manner afterwards: aggressively necking against the door of the TARDIS while the ship panicked and brought them back to Clara's flat, depositing them in her sitting room so they could shag one another silly on some surface _other_ than atop the flight console. Theirs was not a conventional romance, that much was true, yet the two adventurers knew that there were other forms of romance not inherently tied with the courting and wooing of a potential mate. They were already in love—whether they acknowledged it verbally or not—and therefore did not require the rituals that others did. Everyone's language of love was different, and theirs happened to involve meddling in interstellar rebellions and nearly dying at the hands of species that were difficult for their mouth structures to pronounce.

Except, this time, as they went through their goodbyes to a thankful spaceport populace whose lives were (with any luck) headed towards a better track, the Doctor seemed distracted in a way that Clara could not put her finger on. She waited until they had shut the door between them and the party they were leaving behind, her turn to press him up against the faux wooden surface as they went off into the time vortex.

"…and where have all your thought layers wandered off to?" she purred, pressing their bodies together. "I know when you're not focused. Physics of something bugging you again?"

"It's not physics that's bothering me… not this time…" he said, brushing her off. He staggered towards the rail and leaned against it, gripping the cold metal tightly as he used it to keep himself propped up. His arms and knees began to buckle and soon he was crumpled half on the floor, half atop Clara's shoulder.

"This is not good," she cursed aloud, only really saying it for her own purpose. She then turned towards the console, wanting to hit the controls yet not leave the Doctor's side. "Can you get us back to my place? I don't think he's doing too well."

The ship hummed in agreement and landed, opening the door to reveal they were already in her flat. Clara shifted the dead weight of the Doctor to distribute it more evenly and hauled him out the door into her sitting room. His feet dragged as she brought him to her room and deposited him on her bed, the force of which caused him to groan in pain.

"Give me a mo," Clara said quietly. She rushed back towards the TARDIS and tripped over an old-fashioned medical bag that had been placed right in the doorway. Figuring it was the precise thing she was coming in to look for, she took it as she scrambled to get up, running back to her bedroom to find that the Doctor was attempting to get up. She pushed him back down by the shoulders, surprised that there was actually resistance this time around.

"Clara, I can't…" he croaked out.

"No, you're staying here," she insisted. She began to look through the contents of the bag—a stethoscope, a large bowl, a vial of clear liquid, a thick textbook regarding the treatment and prevention of boils—until she came across a small, handheld device: a medical scanner. "Now hold still."

"Clarraaaaa…"

"Hush." She turned the device on and watched as it honed in on the Doctor, analyzing his current state. "Huh… it says here you're going through an allergic reaction…? I didn't know you had allergies."

"Not many," he confirmed. He nearly rolled off the bed and vomited into the bowl, grabbing it just in time to not get his bile all over the rug. Putting it down shakily, he coughed into his hoodie sleeve, a queasy mess. "As I feared—glucosaccaryde."

"That doesn't sound like a real thing."

"It is, and it is not something that agrees very well with many of those who have gone through the Time Academy." His face was becoming a deep pink, which prompted Clara to begin stripping him of his upper layers, going down to his t-shirts. Even his arms were changing shades. "They must use it as a sweetener on Kinurra."

"Why do you say that?"

"The only thing I had there was some cake, and that's what's now there in the bowl," he explained. Clara glanced at the bowl's contents and scrunched her nose—it was _vile_, but there were still bits of cake in the mixture. She took it from the room and dumped it in her toilet, flushing it and the nasty smell it gave off away. Returning to her room, she saw that the Doctor was now a more pronouncedly vivid shade of pink, and putting her hand to his cheek revealed that he was hot to the touch.

"Sit up and let me get this off of you," she said. He complied, though did not help as she yanked his remaining upper layers off. "Is there a medication for this?"

"No."

She undid his belt and slid his trousers off—his entire body was growing hot. "Are you _sure_? If one of my students or coworkers looked like you do, I'd've emptied the Jext pen in my desk into their leg and called an ambulance."

"If there was a medicine, I'd already have it," he said. He closed his eyes and grunted in discomfort. "It's not deadly, so it can run its course without me regenerating."

"…sure as hell doesn't _look_ like it's something that can just 'run its course'! You look like a skinny tomato!"

"It's just my body attempting to purge the glucosaccaryde, nothing mor—" He was cut off by another round of vomit, which also—thankfully—made it all into the bowl. Once his stomach was empty he passed out, collapsing limply against the mattress with one arm dangling down to the floor. Clara cursed under her breath and shoved him fully back on the bed—he was way too warm for someone who layered up all the time and was now a disturbing shade of… _magenta_…? It was too much.

"Alright bag, what do you have for me?"

Clara continued rummaging around in the bag from the TARDIS, hoping that whatever she needed would be in there now more than ever. She searched and searched until she found a small book, filled with neat, tiny, handwritten notes in Gallifreyan. The text wavered and wobbled and rearranged until it reformed into English.

"Now that's more like it," she mumbled. She flipped through the pages quickly, going until she saw the word "glucosaccaryde". The entry was short compared to some of the others, but it explained what she needed to know.

'_An allergy to glucosaccaryde is one of the worse things that a fully realized Time Lord or Lady can experience short of regeneration_,' it read. '_Symptoms include vomiting, high fever, unnaturally and temporarily deepened complexion, stomach pain, swelling of the face and extremities, dizziness, faintness of breath due to loss of respiratory bypass systems, extreme sweating, convulsions, and loss of consciousness. Allow patient to purge glucosaccaryde on own, first via vomiting, then through sweating. Cold baths are appropriate to prevent overheating, unless patient is unconscious, after which only cold compresses are the most reliable method of treatment. Should pass in eight to ten hours, with complexion fading into a localized rash, fully clearing in two days_.'

"Great," Clara frowned. She put the book down and took the bowl with her to the bathroom, again, washing it out and putting cold water into it. Grabbing a couple washcloths from the cupboard on the way, she went back to her room and began what little she could do, wetting the cloths and placing them all over the Doctor's skin. If she didn't know better, he looked like he was being silly after a comically-bad sunburn, not suffering through a severe allergic reaction.

Well, at least he wasn't swelling or convulsing; there was a silver lining to it.

Clara quietly began a cycle of slowly rewetting the cloths and replacing them all over the Doctor's body. She still did not like how incredibly—abnormally—warm he was, he still remained the bright pink-violet color that unnerved her even more. By the time the water in the bowl was room temperature, there had been no change in his appearance or his lack of movement.

"Remind me to feed you deadly alien sugar next time you can't sit still for two minutes," she snarked as she stood to go replace the water. While she was gone, she put together a pot of tea and some biscuits for herself, bringing it all back to her room on a tea tray. When Clara returned, she saw that the Doctor was beginning to sweat profusely, just as the notes had described.

Sitting down on the edge of the mattress, Clara saw that the Doctor's sweat was beginning to soak into her blanket and sheets. "Gross…" she cringed. She quickly began to wipe up all the sweat she could and continue making compresses out of her washcloths. Alternating between the washcloths and her tea, Clara continued as the Doctor slowly began to revert to a slightly calmer pink.

Suddenly, he began to cough, then wheeze, back to consciousness.

"What's going on?" he asked, his voice rough from a swollen throat still recovering from vomiting twice. He looked at the small piles of washcloths sitting all over him, so cold that they burned. "Why are you doing that?"

"Just following the instruction manual for my Type 40 Time Lord," Clara quipped, sipping at her tea. "I have to make sure you're rather naked and being treated with cold, which is frankly easier said than done with you having the internal body temperature of a cast-iron skillet."

"How did you know that…?"

"This." She picked up the book from the tea tray and held it up for him to see. "Did you write this?"

"No—that would be Romana," he replied wispily. "She was with me the last time this happened—it wasn't good."

"How come?"

"She sat there, watching me suffer for about five hours before starting to do anything," he said. He shifted on the bed and a bunch of washcloths slid off, causing Clara to grab them all so she could rewet and replace them. "Pretty sure she wanted to see how it would pan out from a medicinal standpoint, though at my expense."

"…did she know it wasn't lethal…?"

"Of course, but she also wanted to see how it would be if there was no attempt at cooling my body down. She eventually took pity on me; it was torture getting there though."

"It almost sounds like you hate her for it."

"No—I would have done the same had the situation been reversed. I'm just irritated that we _couldn't_ go further."

"…and you're not afraid that you could have _died_…?"

"I told you Clara: glucosaccaryde allergies are not fatal to Time Lords, only severely inconvenient."

"It's common knowledge that the Doctor lies, but I wonder if he realizes how incredibly bad he is at it," she frowned. He pouted at that, not amused by her observation.

"I am _not_ lying."

"You are so."

"If I'm bad at lying, then what are my tells? You seem to know everything about me before I do, Clara Oswald, and it's making me wonder what I'm missing."

Challenge accepted.

"Your lower left eyelid quivers, for starters," she said, her expression nearly smug. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair. "It doesn't twitch—it's a full-on _quiver_—because twitching is reserved for the very corners of your mouth, which go up in the barest of grins."

The Doctor nodded, urging her to continue.

"While you're always distracted to some degree, you're even _more_ _so_ when you're caught up in a plethora of lies. You act just a slight bit grumpier despite the fact you're almost jumping around in glee and you can't seem to even keep your hands still for more than five seconds."

"…is that all…?"

"No, but, I don't know if I want to keep embarrassing you or let you wallow in those facts."

"Do as you will, Clara," he said. "Just remember that my general well-being while recovering is in your hands."

"Mmmhmm." She leaned over and kissed his forehead. "You've cooled down a little."

"I feel rather warm."

"That's just you blushing."

"I don't blush."

"Except you do."

"When…?!" he gasped in false outrage.

"All the time."

"I refuse to believe it."

"Is this like how you are 'against bantering' despite the fact that's what we're doing at this very moment?"

"We are certainly not bantering."

"I'd like to know your definition then." She picked up his hand in both of hers and kissed the knuckles. "There goes that eyelid again."

It definitely was not fair. The Doctor didn't know how, but once he got all of his thought-processes back, he'd figure out a way. Maybe. If he still felt like it.


End file.
